


RE:Connect

by Tech_nique



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Dissatisfied AU, F/F, Is this a ship even?, Multi, Other, after graduation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 00:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7291561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tech_nique/pseuds/Tech_nique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place in an AU where μs broke up for good after season one. Rin has gotten an office job soon after graduation, and goes about her boring, daily life.  Spoilers for season one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	RE:Connect

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to my friends who helped me edit and revise this. I am forever in your debt.

Rin stood in the doorway leading out of the office, turning and raising her hand behind her as she called out to her co-workers. 

“I’m off for the night. I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.” 

Her send off was met only with a few grumbled goodbyes and the tired hands of her other overworked colleagues. She too was exhausted, having sat behind her desk reading and writing reports for some twelve odd hours. Only a lunch and a fifteen minute break in the afternoon segmented the tedium that had become her everyday life just one year after graduation. It had only been a year since she said farewell to Otonokizaka High School and all of the fond memories she’d made there. Memories of her freshman year as a member of the short-lived idol group μs, and the piddling attempts to continue on as an idol after they broke up. 

She found herself once again wondering as to the status of the other former members as she made her way to the Wacdonalds that stood at the midpoint between her workplace and recently rented apartment. Gross as she felt going there every night, she had yet to get the hang of cooking, and she wasn’t too keen on setting off the fire alarm in her apartment again. Getting an earful from her landlord in the first week was hard enough; or. She’d gladly stomach all the grease in the world to avoid that hassle.  
Filing into line, Rin found herself at the end of a long line of hungry patrons. She checked her wristwatch, a silver ovular watch held on her wrist by a thin chain which had been a graduation gift from her mother. It didn’t suit Rin in the slightest, and she knew it, but it told her the time, and more importantly, reminded her of home, which was good enough. It was 6:06 when she arrived; of course she always had to get there in time for the tail end of the dinner rush. It felt like she was always waiting, always sitting. She missed the days when she was always moving, and regretted lazing through them like she had. The line quickly shortened until she was at the counter, starring down at a young man, who looked to still be in high school.

“Uhm, can I get a Wacdouble with cheese, a large fry, and a small pepsi?” She ordered her usual, though, she could tell the cashier had already punched in her order, he must have waited on her before, and she simply didn’t recognize him though. It bothered her t hat faces had begun to blur together into a generic mess. Even at work, where she saw the same men and women every day for hours on end, she found herself struggling to recognize one old salary man from another, after months like this she found herself wondering more and more often if she’d be able to grow close enough to someone to have a person nearby to call a friend.

“Will that be all, Ma’am? 

“Yes.” She resented being called Ma’am, she’d only been twenty for little under a year.

She paid, and took her receipt, moving over to the pick-up area and realizing she hadn’t even specified, or asked to have her meal to go. All the same, the meal came in a bag, and she left with it, her mouth curled into a dissatisfied grimace as she walked through the crowded shopping district. The shops that lined the streets were struggling to tuck away their seasonal stock, as October closed. With the crossing of a bridge over the thinnest part of the river, the tall buildings gave way to the small, humble homes of the residential district. Rin meandered the rest of the way home to her apartment alone with her thoughts, interrupted only once by the glance of a stray cat, which fled as she approached.

She dug through her suit pocket for her key, and with a turn and a push she swung open the door to her apartment. It was a sparse one room affair, with very little adorning the walls, or even the floor. A few boxes lay strewn about with her belongings in them, but she had found neither the time nor the motivation to unpack. She placed her bag on the table, and set about her meal. It tasted like cardboard soaked with grease, as it had every day before, the bun was thin, and dry like paper, with none of the softness one would expect of bread. The patty was as poor an excuse of meat as one could get away with selling, and fell apart in her mouth like mush. She truly missed the home-cooking of her mom, the variety of textures and flavors, as well as the care and love that went into every meal. A sigh escaped her as she finished, and she stood to wash away the stresses of work in her shower. Disrobing and putting her work clothing to one side as to keep them dry, she stepped in, twisting the knob so that hot water would eventually flow. She lifted head up toward the shower head, rinsed her hair before applying shampoo, all the while with cold water. Much had changed since high school, but she was still impatient. 

She felt no relief from her showers anymore, and couldn’t even muster the heart to sing in them, not since her, Hanayo, and Nico had failed to continue μs’ legacy. That emptiness only grew without the constant presence of someone else to distract her from how off-track her life had gone since she graduated. Sure, since μs disbanded she’d had plenty of free time to study, and her grades actually drastically improved with the help of Maki and Hanayo, but it didn’t change the fact that all the improvement felt hollow.  
Plopping down on her bed, she checked her phone. Her mother had texted her while she was in the shower. 

“How are you doing, sweetie?”

“Fine. Work is killer though! :3,” She replied, feigning contentedness for the sake of not worrying her parents any more than she did moving out as soon as she had. After replying, set her phone down on her bed.

It felt like good fortune at first to have received an offer from a company to work full time so soon after leaving high school, but it honestly felt so empty and she wondered if she’d live the rest of her life stuck in this routine. She rolled onto her side, facing her bedside table. On it sat a framed photo of her, Hanayo, and Maki their third year of Highschool, the last year that the school accepted students. This photo had been one of the few things she’d been willing to unpack. It was dear to her, as it felt like the last thing she’d had that connected her to her friends, aside from the rare occasion where both parties had free time and could meet up. Replacing the photo where it had once sat Rin quickly filled her grip with her phone, and brought Hanayo up in her texting app. 

“Kayooo-chin! When do you and Maki-chan have a break nya~? ” She typed, hoping it would be sooner rather than later. 

“Ah, well we were actually planning on making the trip over to see you around your birthday!” The reply was almost immediate, and Hanayo had never been the best at keeping secrets. 

“Ahhh but Kayo-chin I can’t wait that long to see you nya~” It had taken Rin a little to find words that seemed like something she would have said last year. When she wasn’t physically with Hanayo, she found it a little harder to act more like herself, and in that sense she envied Maki to no end, since the two had decided to live together while they attended university. 

This time there was no reply, she must have fallen asleep. Rin plugged her phone in, and lay, staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. 

“I wish I could get a cat.” She said to herself, as she rolled to her side, drifting slowly into sleep. 

Her alarm brought her back to consciousness, though she felt no more awake than she had when she had returned from work in the first place. Running through her morning routine, she brushed her teeth, put on her makeup, something that was still altogether new to her, and put on her suit. It was time for another twelve hour day at work. 

“I’m off for the night. I look forward to seeing you all in two days.” She said, twelve hours later, it felt as if it had become her mantra.

Again weak willed goodbyes and waves were given, and Rin made herself scarce. Her feet trailed the same worn path to the fast food restaurant, she felt as if she’d wear holes into the concrete at this rate. She checked her watch as she arrived, 6:07. She was a minute late. Maybe she’d been getting slower. She remembered she used to get there at 6:05 when she first started coming this way. That minute proved to be all it took for the line to be twice as long today. She queued up anyway, as she didn’t feel like putting in the effort to walk somewhere else. Someone in the front was taking particularly long in their order, and it was then that Rin got fed up with all the waiting, and turned to leave.

“Whatever, I have the next few days off, I’ll just eat a big breakfast to make up for it tomorrow.” She thought, unhappy with the state of things as a whole.

It was then, as Rin’s impatience rose to a breaking point, that a familiar tune met her ears. In the time between songs on the loudspeaker overhead, someone had been humming a μ s song. The last song they’d sung as a group of nine before they broke up. The name escaped her, as her mouth gaped open. Hearing the song brought a flood of memories to her: the rain on that day, Honoka falling to the ground, the panic that ensued as the group met with the director, and the disappointment they all felt as they decided to withdraw from the love live. In that moment, she felt an overwhelming need to meet with this person, a desire to connect with them, to talk to them about something that had once been a source of joy for so many people, herself included. She searched the relatively small dining area, trying as hard as possible to find the person who had been at the disaster that was their last concert, desperately wanting to find someone else to speak to about it. It was after a few short moments that Rin found her answer, next to the entrance, a small figure, with sunglasses lifted onto the front of her hair, and a medical mask pulled down to her neck so she could eat a burger. Her dark hair was down, and reached to about her neck, covering the collar of her pink jumper. 

Rin made a beeline for the person, forgetting all about the grumbling in her stomach and in her heart as she approached this stranger, who, upon noticing her come near, lowered her sunglasses and pulled the mask above her mouth. Clearly this person was someone who didn’t usually partake in the social aspect of life, but that didn’t discourage Rin. Her best friend hadn’t been very personable either, but their friendship had stood the test of time even to this day. 

“Uhm, excuse me, but what was that you were just humming?” She asked, standing to the side of the stranger, trying to not crowd them too much. 

“It’s none of your business, geez.” The stranger responded, getting up with one violent push of energy, which forced her chair back with a loud squeal. 

The stranger began to exit the establishment, but Rin wasn’t satisfied with that, she couldn’t be. The weight of μs had been on her shoulders for four long years, and now that opportunity was upon her, she felt compelled to chase it, even if all she could get was the sympathy of a new fan who thought it was a shame they broke up so soon after captivating the hearts of so many. 

“That was a μs song, wasn’t it!?” She blurted out, causing the figure to wince and look back before dashing out of the Wacdonalds. 

This wasn’t it, this wasn’t the closure she felt she needed, and she took a running start out of the building, taking off her suit jacket and holding it under her arm as she tailed the figure. Though the stranger was fast, Rin kept pace, after all, she’d joined the track team after μs had come to an end, so this was no problem for her. The wind blew through her short orange hair, she knew this chase was ridiculous and uncalled for, but something in her told her she had to talk about μs, or her heart might break. Sure, she’d been able to deal with it when she still had Hanayo to talk to every day, but now that they’d gone separate ways, and only saw each other occasionally, she felt so lonely she could scream. She knew she had to connect with someone, even with a stranger. 

The stranger led her to what seemed to be a storage area, containers lining both sides, rising up as dark shadows behind a fence. The streetlights had long since stopped lining their path, and the only light that remained was a dim fixture attached to the office where people rent out units, and a light that hung down the rows of unit. The stranger scanned a card, opening the fence and allowing her to quickly make her way to the other side, locking Rin out with a single swift motion, and clearly defining the barriers that separated them. The figure had begun to walk towards their storage unit, when Rin did the only thing she could think to do.

“Wait! Don’t you want to talk to a former member of μs!?” She shouted to the other side, her fingers gripping so desperately at the fence that the skin on her fingertips cracked from a combination of pressure and the cold autumn night. 

Dammit! She needed to see that the time that μs spent together wasn’t for nothing, that it still meant something to someone. She recalled, in this moment, how after all they’d done for the school, after just barely saving it, how the attendance rate again began to drop. By her third year the cycle had come again, members of the student body wanted to form an idol group once again in an attempt to save the school, but acting as the student council president, Maki had strongly discouraged it, and although not outright forbidding it, Hanayo’s reluctance to rejoin an idol group, as well as her own shattered any momentum the group had begun to attain, and ultimately crushed their efforts. This meeting was no longer about closure, or attention, it was about closing the crippling gap in her heart, and validating the time that her and her friends had spent together. Slowly, the dark haired girl, in tune with Rin’s realization turned, and pulled her mask down to her neck, shaking a bit as she did. 

“The only former member of μs here is me!” She yelled, “And don’t you ever say something like that so lightly ever again!” She turned around on her heel, leaving Rin with nothing but the view of her back, and a shadow that stretched out from her. 

Rin’s eyes opened in bewilderment. She hadn’t recognized the girl, since her hair was down, and her face was hidden, but it had to be her. There was no way it could be someone else. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words escaped, her tongue refused to move, she bit her cheek as she shook the gate. It had been three years since they’d seen each other, and she damn well wasn’t about to let her slip away again, not after so long of not being able to contact one another, and not after suddenly breaking off, as if she’d fallen off the face of the earth. The girl began to dig through the pockets of her pink jumpers for keys, and once found, unlocked what must have been her storage unit, lifting the gate just a bit as she knelt down to get in. 

“Nico don’t you dare close that gate nya!” Rin shouted desperately, her voice resounding with the same volume and desperation as when they tried to draw people to the roof on the day of the raining cultural festival, on the day that broke μs. 

Her verbal tic had come out. She’d been trying to surpress it since she got into the work force, and it had been months since she heard herself saying it. Nico stopped completely, and all but the wind that blew their hair mimicked her. Silence engulfed them, as if a noose had been tied around each of their necks and fate threatened to release the trap doors beneath their feet if either dared to speak. Although no words were shared between them, she walked to the gate, and opened it for Rin, motioning her towards the unit, to which the orange haired girl obliged.

The inside of the unit was more spacious than the view of the outside would lead one to believe. The walls were lined with poster tubes, shipping boxes, both broken down and not, as well as racks of clothing, tee shirts, costumes, and other various memorabilia scattered about. Nico sat on a futon by one wall, and pulled a laptop out from underneath it. She hadn’t said a word since yelling at Rin, and seemed intent on not doing so anytime soon, as evident when she pointed at a box of tissues. It was then that Rin realized that her finger tips had started bleeding, and she quickly set about cleaning them. 

“D-Do you live here, Nico?” She asked, as guilt welled up inside her. 

Nico nodded, and continued to click about her computer. Rin fell to her knees, scuffing the pants of her suit as she made her way to Nico’s side. Had she tried harder to keep contact with Nico, would this still be the case? Had she and Hanayo been able to successfully carry on μs’ torch, would things have turned out different?

“H-Hey, Nico, you recognize me, right?” She put her hands on Nico’s shoulders, and her lower lip began to quiver. “Right?” Tears welled up in her eyes, and as they streamed down her face, her makeup began to run. 

Nico stared at Rin, with eyes that were cloudy, hollow even, eyes that didn’t at all resemble the unwavering determination Nico had once had. Rin wondered to herself if it had ended up this way for everyone, if things might have been better had μs never formed in the first place. As she thought this, while her tears fell onto Nico’s arm, she felt her former friend shift, and lean her head on Rin’s. 

“Yeah, I remember you.” She whispered in a hushed, defeated tone. 

Rin’s only response was to give way to sobbing .


End file.
